


Heavy

by aeoleus



Category: The Brave (TV 2017)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Whump, basically i felt we needed a little more emotion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-25
Updated: 2018-01-25
Packaged: 2019-03-09 05:42:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13474860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeoleus/pseuds/aeoleus
Summary: "Finding Jaz in the back of that van, bloodied and exhausted, was a little like a failed explosion, Adam thinks."Jaz needs an anchor, a safe place, after she's rescued. Adam isn't one to let a teammate down. (Especially not Jaz.)





	Heavy

Finding Jaz was a little like a failed explosion, Adam thinks. So much tension has built up within his team that he expects a massive pay-off, almost. Something dramatic. Maybe even theatrical.

But this is reality. 

And in reality torture isn’t pretty and people you love die without so much as a goodbye.   
  
He wrenches open the back of the van and finds a man on the floor between Jaz’s shackled feet, strangled. He throws him onto the ground and with little fanfare McG double taps him. By the time Adam hears the second tap he’s already inside the van.   
  
Time doesn’t slow down. He doesn’t get panicky or emotional. Adam is far too well-trained for that. But he would be absolutely lying if he doesn’t admit that he’s utterly sick to his stomach. Jaz is heaving wheezy breathes, her head tipping over onto her blood-stained chest.   
“Jaz, hey-“ Adam crouches in front of her and resists the urge to hold her tight against him and never let her go. There’s blood, blood everywhere. Her hands are tied cruelly above her head. His knife is out and cutting through the rope faster than Adam can even process what he’s doing. Her hands fall limply to her side and her breath is coming erratically. McG has finally gotten into the van and is assessing her, hands feeling for a pulse, trying to ascertain where all the red staining her clothes is coming from.   
“She needs a shot of epi-“ he grunts, already reaching for a syringe.   
“HEY, we gotta go!” Preach yells behind them. Adam can hear sirens in the distance.   
McG jabs the needle into Jaz’s thigh. Her eyes fly open and she gasps, sucking in air like she’s been held under water. Which, Adam thinks, she may very well have. She’s shuddering now, leaning a little into Adam.   
“We need to go.” Adam says. McG nods and they each take one of Jaz’s arms. Adam’s grip seems to open up barely healed wounds and fresh blood begins to seep into the white cloth. Jaz barely reacts, only winces almost imperceptibly. Adam fights down a fresh wave of white-hot fury and together they lift Jaz out of the van and get her into the back of the truck. Adam climbs in the back with her, and McG follows. They slam the door shut and they’re off.

* * *

  
  
It’s a long, torturous ride home. Jaz is extremely quiet. Adam wraps his jacket around her, offering up some color from the horrid white. Jaz barely responds. Her dark hair flies into her face at every breeze and she makes no effort to put it up. Adam remembers how particular she is about always having a hair tie. She hates her hair getting in her face.   
  
Eighteen hours later they pull into the compound. Jaz lets McG pull her into the med bay and she doesn’t even react when Adam follows.   
“Okay, let’s see what we’re dealing with, here.” McG’s slightly too cheery and Adam gives him a side eye. He’s strapping on gloves and motioning for Jaz to take off her top.   
“I’ll go.” Adam gets up and heads towards the door. The wounds can’t be good. Jaz is being so distant he doesn’t want make it worse by making her uncomfortable.   
“No.” Jaz’s voice is raspy from disuse. “Stay.”   
Adam stops dead in his tracks and turns around. Jaz doesn’t look like herself. There’s a vulnerability in the hunch of her shoulders, the redness of her eyes, that Adam has never seen before. And it scares him.   
He nods once and goes back to his perch on the counter. It’s close to her, but far enough to give McG room to work. Jaz slowly pulls off the top, wincing as it comes over her head.   
  
Anger bubbles in Adam’s chest. Into her collarbones, precise and deep, are rows of cuts. They cross the top of her chest and some have not stopped bleeding, clearly aggravated from the ride here.   
McG sets to work cleaning them out and bandaging them, and Jaz lays back while he works, only wincing slightly.   
  
Slowly, methodically, McG cleans and bandages every cut and scrape on Jaz. He inspects every bruise and burn and finally deems her okay to escape the hospital, but only if she remains on IV fluids for the next twenty-four hours. She nods once, curtly, when he says that, and then McG leaves to get her clean clothes and some wipes and a toothbrush.   
  
Adam gets up as the door shuts after McG and he walks slowly to the bed that Jaz is sitting up on now.   
She stares at him with her massive brown eyes, as if daring him to do something. But then she does something Adam has never seen.   
  
She cries.   
Jaz cries. Her voice breaks as she says “Top,” and there are tears tracking down her cheeks and she’s sobbing and she looks so small, so tired, that Adam steps in and he wraps his arms around her and he holds her as tight as he can. Her hands pull tight at his shirt and she sobs into his shoulder. She says nothing. Adam says nothing. They just stay like that. For a long while. McG comes back in with the clothes and Adam signals for him to leave them and go. McG seems to understands and he leaves.   
  
“Let’s get you cleaned up, huh?” Adam says finally, after Jaz has disengaged from him. She nods once, rubbing at her eyes. She seems slightly ashamed now at her outburst, not meeting Adam’s eyes. Adam squeezes her shoulder to try and let her know it was okay, and picks up the wipes.   
“Can I...?” He motions at her face. McG had just sewn up a cut and Adam bets if Jaz manages to break it back open McG would find a way to airlift her to the nearest hospital immediately.   
“Yeah.” Jaz says. Adam takes a wipe out and begins to clean off her face, rubbing gentle circles into her skin. Dust and blood and sweat have built a fine layer up and as Adam cleans it off, it only reveals more bruises and abrasions. He finds a particularly nasty bruise on her temple and Jaz inhales sharply when Adam touches it.   
“Sorry.” He says softly.   
“I’m fine.” She says.   
“Okay.” Adam doesn’t push it. He gently cleans off her forehead. There’s silence for a while.   
  
“He...told me they had caught you.” Jaz says finally. Her voice is flat and emotionless and Adam knows exactly what’s going on in her brain.   
“Caught us?” He keeps his voice disengaged. Introducing emotions to this conversation would just be too much.   
“Yeah. He had...pictures. Of you. Dead.”   
“Huh.” Adam finishes the wipe and throws it out, then comes back to Jaz. She’s staring at him again.

Damn those fucking eyes.

  
“Not dead. Not even close.” Adam takes her hands and squeezes them tight. Jaz responds in turn and Adam only lets go when she does.   
  
Adam goes through three wipes before he deems her face clean enough to move on. She can’t shower yet- McG had yelled something about blood pressure and IVs- but Adam helps her take a good amount of the dust off of her arms and legs.   
“You wanna get outta this shit?” Adam nods at the once-white clothes.   
Jaz scoffs. McG has brought in her favorite sweatpants and her most soft-worn t-shirt. Of course she wants to get out of this shit.   
  
There’s not really such a thing as boundaries when it comes to living and working with the same people for months on end. The boys had gotten used to Jaz needing to change in front of them on missions and vice versa. It was never anything intimate- they were far past that point.   
So when Adam helps her pull the t-shirt over her head and slip the sweatpants on, it’s not out of the ordinary. Maybe what is out of the ordinary is the vice-like grip Jaz has on his arm as she steps into the sweatpants, or the burn scars Adam finds on the outside of her knees.   
“Better?” Adam asks as Jaz settles back into the bed. He gathers up her dirty clothes and shoves them into a bag to be dealt with later.   
“Way better.” She mumbles. Her hair falls into her face again and she huffs at it, annoyed.   
“I could braid it?” Adam offers. Jaz cracks one bloodshot eye open.   
“You can braid?” She asks disbelievingly.   
“I have a younger sister.” Adam shrugs. “Lean forward.”   
Jaz does as he requests and Adam begins to weave her dark hair into a loose French braid. Her head is greasy and full of dust and, in one place, dried blood, but he knows it’s annoying her as it is. He pulls it off of her neck and deftly braids it down her back.   
“There.” He says, patting it gently. “I could be a hair stylist.”   
Jaz laughs at that. It’s quiet and half-hearted, but it’s something.   
“Don’t quit your day job.” She says.   
  
McG enters the room again, bearing supplies.   
“You look better, Jazzy. How you feeling?” He says. He puts the supplies down on the table and snaps on gloves. He’s brought IV supplies.   
“Tired.” Jaz says.   
“You’re gonna be getting a lot of sleep.” He says, patting her shoulder. He cleans off her arm with rubbing alcohol and inserts the needle. Jaz doesn’t even flinch as he does. He sets up a bag of saline and then picks up a second syringe.   
“This is a mild sedative.” He says to Jaz. “ I want you to get a full night’s sleep. Okay?”   
“Okay.” Jaz says softly. McG pushes the sedative and then leaves to throw away the trash.   
  
The effect is almost instantaneous. Jaz relaxes into the bed, the hand gripping Adam’s wrist finally loosening. Adam pulls the blanket up around her neck. She finally looks...unburdened. Adam moves to leave.   
“No.” He hears. He turns around and finds Jaz reaching out a hand. “Stay.”   
“Always, Jaz.” Adam says softly.

He crosses the room and takes her hand, and he sits with her as she drifts off.   
  



End file.
